Included in the new technology will be a seismic array consisting of at least 10 seismographs to be built near Marble Bar. The system will also incorporate improved computer fault rupture models for faster tsunami prediction.

Dr Barry Drummond, head of Earth Monitoring at Geoscience Australia told the conference the tsunami monitoring group is currently using a seismic array at Tennant Creek, in the Northern Territory, to analyse earthquakes in the region.

He says because seismic waves arrive at each seismograph at slightly different times, scientists are able to glean more information about the earthquake.

Determining impact

"At the moment if an earthquake happens we get the magnitude and location," he says.

But he says parameters such as the length of the rupture, how fast it occurs and in which direction it travels will determine where the tsunami is produced.

Drummond says a slow rupture, for reasons currently unknown, causes a worse tsunami.

Using the seismic array technology the group has determined the 2004 Boxing Day earthquake and subsequent tsunami, which devastated south-east Asia, was 1100 kilometres long and lasted for 610 seconds travelling at less than two kilometres per second.

He says the recent earthquake in China travelled 300 kilometres for 100 seconds at three kilometres per second.

The success of determining this information has given impetus to the push to build a seismic array near Marble Bar, he says.

An assessment is currently underway and if successful the new facility would focus on the area south of Java.

Improved warning

Drummond says the facility will provide extra time authorities for more time to alert the public of an approaching tsunami.

"If a tsunami-causing earthquake occurred in the region to the north or east of Australia we would know about it and where it occurred within 6 minutes. Within 10 minutes we would know how big it is, and from that we would have an idea of the size of the tsunami we could be dealing with," he says.

"We now access information in a minute or two which just 20 years ago would have taken hours or even days to generate, and this means Emergency Management Australia will now receive a warning at least 90 minutes before any tsunami reaches Australia."

Australian tsunamis

"Australia won't be hit by a huge wall of water like we saw coming on to the beaches of Thailand," he says.

Instead he says smaller tsunamis will reach the coast with local conditions such as the shape of the sea bed causing larger waves in some areas.

He points to a 2006 earthquake near Java that caused a tsunami to approach the west coast of Australia at a height of 30cm.

But at a location called Steep Point, in the far north of Western Australia, a family camped on the beach was almost washed away by the wave that had been funnelled up to two metres high by the sea bed and land shape.